


(de)tachment

by toastweasel



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: F/F, Kidfic, cw: the affects of suicide and or suicidal thoughts and actions on family members, divorced moira is an emotionally and physically distant mom but TRYING HER BEST
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-21
Updated: 2018-05-21
Packaged: 2019-05-09 14:17:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,186
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14717690
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/toastweasel/pseuds/toastweasel
Summary: “There are three sides to every story. His side, her side, and somewhere in the middle is where you'll find the truth.” ~ProverbALTERNATIVE SUMMARY:toastweasel: you know how everyone writes Moira as like....48 year old good-in-bed-but-unable-to-hold-down-a-steady-relationship, etc? Might I present to you instead: Recently divorced and/or widowed Dr. Moira O'Deorain.Faid: Interesting. I like it. Continue.cyborgshep: *banging fists on table* angst, angst, angst





	(de)tachment

**Author's Note:**

> Alternative, alternative summary: Ty gotta give errybody an OC (ex)wife, cuz they can't fucking help themselves
> 
> Do I know where I'm going with this? NO! Do I know if I'm going to continue it?! ALSO NO! :')
> 
> But it'll be Moicy if I do, so that's why that tag is there.

Moira O’Deorain was a strange woman. Not that Angela spent much time with her, as they were in two separate departments. They rarely interacted, save for the bi-monthly interdepartmental meetings and the rare occasion when they would both be in the gym or mess hall at the same time.

From her little interaction with her, Angela had formed a brief profile of the Irish woman: Wickedly smart and impossibly arrogant, always impeccably dressed but not much of a talker. She was a loner, and not incredibly wel liked by those downstairs, but she was altogether much too valuable to be released into the wilds and replaced with someone more sociable.

Which is why she is not exactly thrilled when Captain Amari asks her to work with Dr. O’Deorain on researching and prototyping a new med pack. However, the new packs were badly needed, so Angela agrees and meets Moira in the officer’s lounge for tea and a brainstorming session. As she steps inside, past the threshold and into the neutral ground the lounge represents, Moira is there, making tea at the kitchenette counter.

“Dr. O’Deorain, thank you for meeting with me,” Angela says pleasantly. The lounge is empty save for them.

Moira turns, sees her, and nods in the perfunctory way of acknowledging someone’s existence. “Dr. Ziegler.” A pause, and then she gestures with the electric kettle still in her hand. “Tea?”

“Angela, please, and no thank you.” Angela steps up next to her at the counter and instead pours herself a healthy measure of coffee from the still-warm pot. “I appreciate the offer, though, it smells great. Jasmine?”

Moira makes a noise of agreement and sets the kettle back on the stand. She settles the floating tea bag in her mug by dunking it several times, then fishes a spoon out of one of the drawers. “Shall we sit?”

“Oh, of course.” They take one of the smaller tables in the back, near the prime window real estate. Moira settles in the chair then re-dunks her tea bag. Angela realizes Moira has put the burden of starting this conversation on her. “So Captain Amari wants homing medpacks. It is an interesting idea, but I have some concerns about the viability of such a design, as well as the safety.”

“I agree,” Moira says immediately. “How does one, for example, keep them from healing the enemy?”

“Currently our enemies are omnic in nature, but if Overwatch ends up against human adversaries, I completely agree,” Angela replies, then adds, “Furthermore, would they just be a stabilization measure until a medic arrives to complete a full diagnosis, or would they offer full treatment?”

Moira nods and pulls a notebook from her breast pocket. She uncaps a beautifully vintage fountain pen and starts scribbling in what has to be both the messiest and the most beautiful handwriting Angela has ever seen. “How they are to be controlled should be considered as well. AI, or the bots answer to a medic for orders and triage?”

“Perhaps a mix of both,” Angela offers up, then gestures at the notebook. “Would you mind sending those to me after the meeting?”

“I’ll scan them when I get downstairs,” the older woman replies without missing a beat. “How would you propose we intermix the interfaces? It is not my area of expertise.”

“Mine either,” Angela admits with a sheepish smile. “We will probably have to call Winston in for a consultation.”

“Joy,” Moira says with a grimace, and her eyes flick down to the notebook again. She scribbles something underneath the notes. “Let’s focus on what we do have experience with then, shall we?”

Angela makes a noise of agreement. For the next half hour or so, they go over the final details of what they want the bots to do, and how they should function. They don’t entirely see eye to eye on the delivery—a spray of nanobots versus an injection, but they manage a rough few sketches of what they want the prototypes to look like and how they will perform.

It is as their meeting is winding down that there’s a buzzing; Moira jumps and hurriedly fishes in her back pocket. She pulls out a communicator, sleek and black unlike the orange ones they carry as Overwatch agents. A personal device. She takes a single glance at the screen and her lip curls derisively, but a second later she looks over at Angela and appears apologetic.

“I’m sorry, I have to take this,” she says as the communicator buzzes in her hands.

Angela nods and waves her away, wondering what on earth could be so important that she take a personal call at work.

Moira unfolds her long form quickly from the chair and hurries out of the lounge, device already pressed to her ear. “O’Deorain, and be quick about it, I’m working.”

Angela wonders what it is that Moira is taking a _personal call_ while on the clock at Overwatch. She doesn’t seem like the type. Hell, Angela did not even know she had enough people in her life outside of Overwatch to deem the expense of a personal device reasonable. Moira O’Deorain is truly full of surprises.

She can just hear the sound of Moira’s voice out in the hall, but can’t make out what she is saying. Whatever it is, she sounds angry. It’s several minutes more before she comes back, and when she does, it is with a defeated slump about her shoulders that Angela finds unsettling. In her head, Dr. O’Deorain is nothing but a confident straight back and withering looks.

“Everything okay?” Angela asks, unable to keep the concern out of her voice.

“Yes,” Moira replies crisply as she tucks the communicator back into her back pocket. “I apologize for the interruption.”

“It’s okay. We were winding down anyway.” Angela stands and collects up their mugs. “When is your next available date? We can meet up and start to build a prototype.”

“I’ll have to look at my calendar when I get back downstairs.”

“That’s fine,” Angela replies with a smile as she rinses their mugs out and puts them in the dishwasher. “Just send me a message when you do and we can coordinate.”

Moira nods. “Excellent. Thank you, Dr. Ziegler.”

“Of course. I’ll talk to you soon.”

~*~

They commandeer one of the Experimental Labs with the express permission of Captain Amari, and the enthusiastic support of Winston, to work on the med pack prototype. It would eventually go on to the engineering side of R&D to manufacture, but it was decided that between the two women, both Moira and Angela had enough combined experience and doctorates to create something that would function long enough to perform viable experiments. Angela might have been head of Overwatch’s Medical division, but a detail was found so some rising star could take over while Angela worked with Moira. Moira herself was pulled away from her research and was assigned to the project full time while it was in development.

And so they got to work.

Moira’s aptitude with code went beyond genetics, so she immediately took to the computers, alternating between standing and sitting as she rattled lines and lines of numbers out of the hard light keyboard. Angela, having built this sort of drone machine before when she pioneered her nanite technology, started with the drawings and the modeling of the bot in three-dimensional modeling software. Occasionally she’d print out the drawings large scale and spread them out over one of the lab tables for her and Moira to pore over. Moira was quick with her red felt-tipped pen, and Angela found herself almost wishing she had had Moira five years earlier to look over her original experimental nanite models. She had a critical eye that found flaws almost immediately, and a matter-of-fact way of pointing them out instead of sugar coating Angela’s mistakes.

They made a good team . . .  even when they lost track of time and worked past closing time.

Moira’s personal communicator rings on one of these nights, from where it rests on one of the faraway counters, charging on its pad. They both jump at the sudden vibrations, loud against the phenolic resin surface.

Moira snatches up the communicator as fast as her long legs can carry her there, and swears. “Buggering fuck, is it that late already?”

Angela is a bit taken aback by the use of language. Not that she does not think Moira is capable of swearing, just that she has never heard her before, and the words she spits before answering the call are particularly jarring after their afternoon of silence.

“Therese,” Moira answers with a biting amount of curtness in her voice, “what can I do for you?”

She tries not to snoop, she really does, but Angela can’t help but listen a little bit. Moira drifts towards the door, which opens as she approaches. The geneticist lingers on the threshold just out of Angela’s sight; however, she can see her in the partially reflective surface of the whiteboard wall.

"I knew she’d sent them, but I didn’t know it had arrived . . . I’ve been busy? I've nae checked my post box yet this week.” Whoever is on the other line, their voice makes Moira’s Irish brogue particularly thick when she responds. Angela hears the rustle of fabric and watches as the blurry figure of Moira adjusts to lean on the doorframe. Then a frown, just barely visible in the reflection, and an exasperated sigh. “Aye, I’ll look tomorrow. When do you need them signed?”

Signed. Papers for something, then, being shipped from wherever to Overwatch HQ in Zurich. What did Moira’s caller need signed, and why did the older woman sound so bitter about it?

“Alright. I will.” More silence. “What’s the date? May 20th? Alright, fine. Send it to me. Yes…I’ll have to take off time and—yes, I _know_. I’m going to be there, Therese.”

 _Be where?_ Angela wanted to know. _Where are you going, and how is it going to impact our project?_

“Nae, I—I’m still in the lab. Yes, I know it’s late, we lost track of time…” Another sigh, long suffering in nature and full of baggage, as Moira was undoubtedly being chewed out by her mystery caller. “That’s what you always say.” A pause. “I’ll call them later, after we wrap up. They don’t like me calling, anyway.”

Moira shifted again, and Angela stops straining to see Moira in the whiteboard and turns back to her screen. The door to the lab whooshes closed with a pneumatic hiss and dull thud as Moira walks back into the depths of the lab.

“Alright, I’ll have it to you next week,” Moira says, still talking on her communicator.  "Aye…aye. Good evening, Therese.”

Her voice softens with those three words, right before she ends the call, and Angela feels a pang of unwarranted jealousy. Who in this world dares to be able to coax softness out of rigid, frigid, emotionally constipated Moira O’Deorain?

The hand holding the communicator drops, and the older woman looks incredibly haggard all of a sudden. She stands in the middle of the room, leaned against the island lab table with all of their drawings on it, and pinches the bridge of her nose in frustration.

“Bloody hell,” Moira grumbles after a second, then straightens and moves to take her communicator back to its charging pad.

“Everything alright?” Angela asks, wary of prying but insatiably curious.

“My wife,” Moira says with a helpless gesture at the phone, then stops and grimaces. “Ex-wife, I suppose, once I send back the papers.” A pause. “There’s been paperwork shipped, apparently, that I need to sign to finalize…everything.”

The last bit is said with another hopeless gesture and the kind of note to one’s voice that belies resigned exhaustion.

Angela doesn’t notice that, though. She’s too busy reeling with all of this new information about her incredibly secretive colleague. Moira is gay. Moira is married. Or, will be married until she signs divorce paperwork. Only one of the three was easily inferable from all the information Angela had had about her at present.

“I’m sorry about the divorce,” Angela says quietly, eventually, because it seems like the right thing to say in the present circumstances.

“So am I,” Moira murmurs, her voice almost doleful.

Silence falls, and Moira sits back at her computer and her code and gets back to work. Neither of them speak for the rest of the evening.

~*~

Angela wonders all sorts of things, now that she knows there is more to Dr. Moira O’Deorain than stiff shoulders, perfectly tailored suits, and well starched labcoats. Wonders who possibly could have put up with her for however long it was they were married. Who could have lived with O’Deorain’s clearly minimalist but perfectionist lifestyle, her biting sarcasm and quick critique?

Her curiosity gets the better of her. The next day, she leaves at a reasonable time and, after a meal in the mess hall, she reclines in bed with her tablet and types ‘Moira O’Deorain, Therese “wedding”’ into her search browser.

It’s totally normal to be looking up your coworker’s wedding announcement, she reasons with herself as she clicks on an article from some queer magazine, long defunct but the internet archive remembers all. The article itself is two decades old. That surprises her, but then she supposes that Dr. O’Deorain _is_ more than a decade older than her. She’s had time.  

It’s totally normal to Google your newly-divorced (divorcing?) coworker’s wife, after pulling her last name (Annand) from the wedding announcement. She’s just curious, that’s all, and curiosity is human nature. She just wants to know more about Moira, and Moira’s clearly not ever going to tell her.

Therese Annand is actually _Doctor_ Therese Annand, a scholar of poetry and a professor at the University of London in the English Department. She’s pretty, with wavy dark hair and simple make up, tanned skin, a nice smile. A quick search of the department uncovers she specializes in queer poetry, and teaches several queer classes in conjunction with the Marginalized Orientations, Gender Identities, and Intersex Studies Department. She has good ratings on all of the professor rating websites—kind, fair, and warm with her students, but serious about the coursework and a harsh essay grader. Everything a good professor should be.

Angela desperately wonders how two individuals as different as Dr. Moira O’Deorain and Dr. Therese Annand meet.

So she does so more looking. She finds her on social media; she’s a prolific writer, feminist, social justice advocate. There’s a picture of her at an anti-war protest, and another one of her and two reluctant looking teenagers that look startling like Moira. It’s a proud mom sort of photo, with Therese in the middle and her arms squeezing the both of them close.

A boy and a girl, roughly three or five years apart, both with Moira’s bone structure (namely willowy limbs and cheekbones that could cut glass). Their eyes are brown, like Therese, and the girl has Therese’s dark hair but a predilection for heavy eyeliner and piercings. The boy has a shock of red hair and freckles and could be Moira’s duplicate, had he not Therese’s kind eyes and little nose underneath his glasses.

There’s nothing to indicate how Moira and Therese met, or what led to their relationship’s decline, but the evidence says they’ve been together for nigh on two and a half decades and had two kids and a fairly decent life until….whatever it was that pulled them apart.

Moira does not seem like a cheater, but then again Angela obviously does not know her that well to make that judgement call. She does not like to think of Moira like that, though. Moral failings, perhaps. Artistic differences. A lack of intimacy. The fact Moira went to work for a militaristic colonizing force masquerading as a peace enterprise.

Not that Angela would have that opinion. She just read lots of articles online. Just like she is reading one that Moira’s wife wrote about the history of queer poetry in the United Kingdom.

Ex-wife, Angela reminds herself. Therese is Moira’s ex-wife.

And she’s being creepy. It’s gone beyond professional coworker curiosity now. She knows Therese was born in Glasgow, grew up on a country farm and moved to the city to pursue her degree in higher education. That she moved south, to London, after receiving a prodigious fellowship and scholarship to continue her studies.

She knows more about Therese than she should. She’s gone deeper than she ought to have. It’s when she catches herself wondering what their kids names are, if she can find the records of them to find out how old that are, that she closes the tab on her tablet and sets it aside.

That, she tells herself, is more than enough.

Even Dr. Moira O’Deorain deserves her familial privacy, especially if it’s crumbling around her.

~*~

Time passes, and their project continues on schedule. Moira does not mention the divorce again, and Angela does not ask. They build a prototype, and then another to fix the bugs of the first. They have to go over the code with a fine tooth comb to find a bug that costs them a day’s progress. Then it’s a waiting game while the engineering team in R&D builds the first real, fully operation drone.

It’s a bit more than a prototype, but not quite a finished project. There are still kinks. Sometimes Moira has to plunge her hands into the belly of the device, muttering angrily in Gaelic as she fixes something the engineering team “upgraded” without asking. It’s on one of these patches, on the third not-quite-finished-prototype kicked out by the engineering department, that Moira gets a call.

Angela wonders idly if she should keep a tally for how many times Moira gets personal calls from her ex-wife at work, and when she gets to five she should buy Moira a beer. A good one, German stout, or maybe something lighter if Moira doesn’t like her beer dark.

Moira’s personal device continues to buzz on the counter.

“Do you want to get that?” Angela asks after the third vibration.

“Who’s it from?” the geneticist asks, not looking up from the guts of the med bot.

Angela goes and looks at the screen; surprisingly, it’s not Therese. “Someone named Eian O’Deorain?”

“Answer it,” Moira says immediately, glancing up now and suddenly very much focused on the communicator. “On speaker please.”

Angela does so. As soon as she answers it a querulous voice asks, “Ma?”

"How many times have I told you not to call me at work, Eian?" Moira asks, and her voice is brittle with annoyance.

 "I'm sorry Ma, but Laire's cracked. She came home from school early an’ is in her room cryin' and real upset and won't open the door and Mum's at lecture and ain't answerin’ her phone and—please Ma, I don't know what to do!"

The boy’s voice, Moira’s son Angela realizes, is frantic, and his words are slurred slightly in fear and with the type of accent that occurs when a child grows up around multiple different languages and ways English is spoken. English is Angela’s fifth language, and despite being a part of Overwatch she’s not _great_ when it’s heavily accented, or spoken at very high speeds, like Moira’s son is doing right now.

But Moira obviously has no trouble understanding him. The speed at which Moira pulls her hands out of the bot is both alarming and impressive. She’s already grabbing for the phone with one hand and tugging her second glove off with her teeth by the time Angela registers she is moving.

“Calm down, Eian, and start from the beginning,” Moira orders. “Tell me exactly what is happening.”

“…I dunno, Ma. She came home blubberin’ about somethin’—an exam, maybe?—but then she went to her room and started screamin’ an’ I went up there but the door is locked and she’s cryin’ but won’t answer the door and Mum—”

“Won’t answer her phone,” Moira finishes for him, glancing at Angela. Angela can see, for the first time, a real hint of parental concern in her eye.

“Yeah, Ma. What do I do?!”

“Listen carefully, Eian,” Moira says sternly, with the voice of motherhood that brokered no argument. “You are going to put me on speaker and slide your communicator under the door so I can talk to Laire. Then you are going to go next door to Mrs. Sackerman’s and call 999, do you understand?”

“Yes, Ma—but what do I say?”

Angela moves to leave, in deference of Moira’s privacy and this obvious family crisis, but Moira motions for her to say. She goes over to the desk, still walking her son through what he should tell the 999 operator, and scribbles something on a post-it note. She shoves it in Angela’s direction and motions to her Overwatch-issue communicator, settled on its own charging disc next to where Moira’s personal device had been.

Angela takes a look at the note scribbled in Moira’s nearly unintelligible handwriting:

 _(_ _1) Password: W!LD348_  
     Contacts  > Therese _Annand_  
    Plz text: Laire needs us. Call @  WORK when you are finished.

 _(2) Call_ _+44 (0) 8457 90 91 92. Ask for Dr. Annand. Busy = leave message to call me at WORK._

She looks up to Moira, but Moira has already drifted off, taken her personal device off speaker and is instead talking in soft tones into the microphone. Parental tones. Gentle, but firm. The device is cradled in between her ear and shoulder and she rolls up her sleeves.

Angela almost gets distracted watching her, listening to her, watching the sway of her newly-loosened tie, but then she remembers that Moira’s daughter is very clearly having a mental health crisis and she’s been drafted into helping. So she unlocks Moira’s work phone and texts her ex-wife, then calls what ends up being London University’s English department and leaves the message for Dr. Annand, who is indeed not available to take a call at the moment.

She feels beyond bizarre doing this, but Moira had clearly delegated to her because she thought she was trustworthy, thought she was capable, thought she was…something. She sure feels _something_ alright, sitting in her desk chair with Moira’s Overwatch communicator clutched between her knees, watching Moira pace and listening to her footsteps and the sounds of Moira’s voice as she speaks to her daughter.

She sounds wise. She sounds tired. Somehow she keeps an even tone, although she is not altogether unaffected. She sounds like her voice alone, rich with concern and throaty with the remnants of fear, could provide the sort of spiritual, mental, and physical healing she talks about with her daughter, as she attempts to talk her down off of whatever sort of ledge she has worked herself up onto.

(Figuratively. Perhaps literally, too, at least once in the past, if the gist of the conversation Angela is catching from the snippets she hears Moira say is anything to go by.)

Finally, Moira stops pacing. She presses the phone to her ear tightly and her mouth grows thin for a second. “Let them in, _ceann beag_. Please, so your Mum doesn’t have to pay to fix the door. They will—I know, darling, I know. They will take care of you. Trust me, please.  Yes, of course…yes…of course. I’m very proud of you. Yes. _Is breá liom tú._ ”

There’s a pause, and Moira stands stock still, lips pressed together so hard they are bone white. Finally her shoulders sag in relief as she says, “Yes, yes, I am her mother…” A pause. “One of them, yes. Moira O’Deorain. No I can’t I’m—” she hedges, winces, glances at Angela “—I’m in Switzerland. Yes, at work. Therese, her other mother, works at London University. I’ve been trying to contact her but I believe she’s teaching at the moment.”

Moira listens for a moment, then goes to the desk and scribbles furiously on another post-it note. “Of course. I’ll update her as soon as I can get a hold of her. Thank you very much. Good afternoon.” She hangs up the phone and almost immediately slumps back against the counter, hands going backwards to steady herself. Angela starts to her feet and Moira closes her eyes and takes a deep, shuddering breath.

“What’s the situation?” Angela can’t help the professional, clinical note her voice takes. It’s just how she is.

Moira gestures vaguely with the hand still holding the post-it note then presses the meat of her palm to her forehead. “My daughter, Laire…she’s feeling very overwhelmed.”

“And?” Angela asks softly, hesitantly, not wanting to pry but deeply concerned by what she just witnessed, of the condition of the girl, Moira’s daughter.

“She holds herself to very high standards,” Moira says stiffly, but it is clear her resolve to be private is slowly cracking from worry, and from the creep of adrenaline withdrawal. “And when she doesn’t meet those standards…”

Angela swallows thickly past the sudden lump in her throat at the implications. “Did she…?”

“Not this time,” Moira says softly, gratefully, and tilts her head back to look at the speckled tiles of the drop ceiling. “In the past…yes.”

Angela sucks in a sharp breath.

There’s a long pause as it is clear the older woman weights her words carefully. “Laire…has anxiety…and she’s bipolar depressive. When she doesn’t meet the standards she sets forth for herself, she can have anxiety attacks that trigger suicidal ideations.”

“Is she on medication?” Angela asks immediately.

“Yes, but I suspect she hasn’t been taking it.” Mismatched eyes close and she sighs. “It doesn’t get this bad unless she’s gone without it for a spell.”

“Why hasn’t she been taking it?”

“I don’t know,” Moira says tiredly. “Perhaps she forgot. She graduates in May.”

The unspoken ‘perhaps she did it on purpose’ hangs in the air between them. Moira either does not want to admit the possibility, or does not want to speculate more. Angela cannot tell which, but she can see the dark thoughts lingering behind her eyes. To distract her, she asks softly, “Got any pictures?”

(It isn’t like she hasn’t already seen the two children, Laire, Eian, with their other mom Therese, but she’s curious. She wonders if Moira is the type of parent with photos on their phone.)

Moira cracks an eye open and looks at her, then nods. She sets the note aside and lifts up her phone.  As she searches through the digital gallery, Angela moves forward to be lean next to Moira. The bot lays forgotten on the island counter in front of them.

Eventually Moira finds a photo and tilts the screen towards Angela. Angela takes it; the picture is old, older than the photo from Therese’s social media account. It’s of the four of them, and a large, severe-looking Doberman Pinscher. The happy family. Moira’s arm is around Therese, who looks radiant, and the small smirk twisting up the corner of Moira mouth contrasts wildly with Therese’s large smile. Laire is frowning in typical pre-teen fashion, and Eian, who looks no more than seven, and is grinning at the camera with large, gaped teeth.

“This is them?” Angela asks softly. “Your family?”

Moira nods once and uses one long finger to point. “Therese, my ex. Eian, the youngest. He’s thirteen now. A little shite most of the time, I’ll tell you, but…he’s got a heart of gold, like his mum.”

Angela wonders which ‘mum’ she refers to. Probably Therese, but she wonders if there isn’t a heart of gold underneath all of that frosty geneticist exterior.

“And by process of elimination, you see my daughter, Laire.”  

“How old is she?” Angela asks softly.

“Eighteen in June.” The blonde smiles, and Moira takes the communicator back. She swipes through the photographs then tilts the screen again to show Angela a more recent photograph of her daughter standing next to a twisted black metal sculpture almost as tall as she is. “She’s very into art. They both are, really. Eian more so than her, actually. Laire just does it recreationally, when she sees fit and the fancy strikes her. I think Eian will end up doing to professionally.”

“Takes after his mum?”

Moira snorts. “Hardly.” She pages through until she finds a recent video, and twists the phone into a landscape view. The video shifts with the twist, and after a moment, the footage begins. Eian strums on a guitar on screen and after a few chords starts to sing. His voice, all things considered, is quite good, although it is clearly starting to crack with puberty. “As you can see, musically inclined. He wants to start a band, but can’t find enough mates yet to do so.”

“Give him time. Soon he’ll be terrorizing the neighborhood out of your garage.”

The older woman chuckles darkly. “I’m sure that would make Therese _very_ happy,” she says dryly, then ends the video and slips the device away. “Laire is in a metal phase, apparently, which means she’s had a couple of our…of their neighbors complaining already.”

“Apparently?” Angela asks, and pretends she doesn’t notice the slip of ‘our’ to ‘their.’

“Only what Therese has told me,” Moira replies, and looks a bit ashamed. “I don’t…get home very much. Therefore I’m not very popular with my children…or her, for that matter.”

Angela is starting to paint a picture of the reasons Moira and Therese split. An overworked research scientist, living halfway across Europe, working for an organization Moira’s ex-wife was most likely not fond of, and apparently practicing the role of distant parent to boot.

“You should go home,” Angela tells her. “It sounds like your daughter needs you.”

“She doesn’t need me,” Moira says softly. “She’s made it very clear she does not want me in her life right now, after the divorce.”

Angela frowns and gestures at the personal device in Moira’s pocket. “Then what was all that about? She talked to you and not her brother, yes?”

“Any harbor in a storm.” The bitterness in Moira’s voice is hard to miss. Angela aches for her. Moira’s nose wrinkles and she pushes away from the counter. “Come, we’ve gotten distracted. Let’s get back to work.”

Just as Angela nods, because it is clear Moira needs the distraction (and so, honestly, does she), the communicator in Angela’s hands buzzed. She looks down—INCOMING CALL: THERESE ANNAND lights up the screen. Moira notices, too, and Angela hands the phone over with a stern look and a finger pointed towards hallway.

“Take a break. Go worry about your daughter, and don’t come back into this lab until you’ve got a plane ticket back to London.”

Moira doesn’t argue, only takes the communicator and the post it note from the counter and walks for the door. The last thing Angela hears her say as the door hisses closed is, “Hello, Therese…”

**Author's Note:**

> Much love to Shep and Faid for the encouragement, and to Faid for the beta.
> 
> *whispers* love me with comments and maybe I'll actually write the Moicy part


End file.
